” “Continuing the fight against the privatisation of the water services and withdrawing the 72 deregulation proposals across the EU; obtaining the legal recognition of water as a "heritage of mankind" in the national and European Constitutions and at the United Nations; creating a "Universal water committee" within the UN. These are the first few proposals that came to the fore during the World meeting of citizens and elected members for water (Amece), which opened yesterday, March 18th, at the EU Parliament in Brussels, to last until March 20th. Over 600 participants from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and North America on behalf of citizens, MPs, local authorities, trade unions and businesses. The proposals that came to the fore include one for asking the European Committee to "withdraw the 72 proposals for deregulating the water services" and "allocate 1% of the military outlays to secure access to water to those who do not have it. In this way, in 4 years’ time, everyone could have access to drinkable water and water-related sanitisation services". The European Commissioner for Cooperation and Development, Louis Michel, stated that "the lack of water and sanitation for billions of people in the south of the world is unacceptable". Then, in mentioning the 400 million euros allocated by the Europe to such end, he urged people to "promote the twinning of municipalities of the north and south of the world".” ” ” “
